"upended" poems
An early evening gust
broke the back of the day's blaze
Still 90 degrees at eight
in orange haze
Sweat runs down my neck
Through the gorge between my *******
The wind lifts my linen shirt
runs its hands along my sides
reviving memory
of Forest Park
of a blanket in the grass
Where the pines trace
so many faces
Crackling popping kids
stolen matches, running
screaming victorious!
Blowing tin cans up with fire crackers
Bicycles, sparklers, fireworks at dusk
That whole afternoon
I spent hammering caps
Noise really makes us kids
really
especially
annoying
Mom wants us out!
Gone! All of us!
No needs. No excuses!
No cookies! No slices of bologna!
“No more Kool Aid!
Out now!
Out!”
That evening I tried
to dismiss the itchy sweat
of stupid-sister-Suzy-matching-sun-suits
at Gino's family picnic
When some kid
(I don't know?)
between the rigatoni and the sweet corn
Some kid
tosses a sparkler
into box of fireworks
I don't know?
whether to cry or laugh
I was pretty scared
Rockets going off across the lawn
and onto porch
Craze of colors through the trees
Some at eye-level horror!
But the sight of Aunt Nedda
diving under picnic table
Stockings, garter belt upended
Capsized beyond her caring
of uplifted dress
Some images just stay with you, ya know?
July 4th always lands for me
on a firework's ***
Jul 3, 2018
Jul 3, 2018 at 1:34 AM UTC
*here's how it happens
the morning after
you reach into the drawer
where the your t-shirts live
to find it austere
you'll shrug because
you're still drunk
& you can't remember
when last it was
that you had something wet
or how long it's been
since you made the floorboards blush
or why the carpet is upset
who wouldn't be
the contents to the upended ashtray
strewn around the apartment
resemble the aftermath
of the smallest war
to ever take place in norfolk
some midnight thief
must've made off with the lighter
because it isn't in
any of your favorite spots
maybe you chucked it
along with a hundred other things
that make noise when they land
in the neighbors yard
you won't remember putting
the refrigerator's belongings
in the bathtub
or scrawling a buzzard
on the bedroom door
but then again who would
you'll pretend it's spring again
before putting on your winter coat
to go out front with a cigarette
in your mouth
you'll hope for a passing stranger
to *** a light from
or drag yourself to the corner
with couch cushion change
to buy a new lighter
and on your way
you won't bother looking back
this is just another day
on eggshells for no reason
another november
choking on birthday candles
on your way home
you step over beer cans
the kind you fell in love with
and wonder who
had the last laugh last night
or if anyone said a word at all
it might've been another
moment of clarity
it might have been some idiot savant
any adjective that feels like home
anything that keeps you thirsty*
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 10:30 PM UTC
<Loud as you can say it>
I am Outlaw!
-call me Pirate!
I live such freedom,
all souls admire it!
The awful God,
has judged my soul,
Weighs his measure,
I'll pay my toll!
<In a high-pitched voice>
The sailor's way,
path unknown,
Stars are clouded,
nothing shown?
The sea's are high,
a storm is here,
Davey Jones' Locker,
my home is near.
<Loud again, yell it>
There is no heaven,
there is no hell,
Life on seas,
the seas they swell,
Fish scales on arms,
scales on my legs,
Heart born free,
dread-locked and dregs!
I am Outlaw!
-call me Pirate!
Lost lives redeemed,
some should admire it,
The ship upended,
all hands to drown,
In Davey Jones' Locker,
a peaceful sound...
<In a high-pitched voice>
The sailor's way,
path unknown,
Stars are clouded,
nothing shown?
My time has ended,
fate is near,
Davey Jones' Locker,
my death is here.
<Loud again, yell it>
I am Outlaw!
-call me Pirate!
A man of valor,
some do admire it.
I am Outlaw!
-call me Pirate!
A dreadful life,
though some desire it.
I am Outlaw!
-call me Pirate!
To Davey Jones' Locker,
my deeds require it.
I am Outlaw!
-call me Pirate!
I AM OUTLAW!
-CALL ME PIRATE!
I am Outlaw!!
-call me Pirate!
My life on the ocean,
my God inside it.
Aug 21, 2016
Aug 21, 2016 at 11:56 PM UTC
ANGEL!*
Angel of the dark,
My night is lone-ly
-and I'm distended,
still find me comely?
Our world's upended.
Such a pressure
pres-sure of pain
Where is Lion?
I miss his mane.
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark,
Spirit of night
holder of the mark.
Such a pressure
pressure of the pain.
Long dead my lion...
-no comfort-ting
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark,
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark,
Invite no pressure here
take away my pain.
Only a child soon
-only a name.
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark!
ANGEL!
Angel of the dark!
SPIRIT OF NIGHT
i l l u m i n t a t e d mark.
LONG DEAD MY LION
fall away my heart,
-still I have you angel...
MY ANGEL OF THE DARK!
-still I have you angel...
*My Angel of the dark.
Feb 1, 2018
Feb 1, 2018 at 10:54 PM UTC
you see
i had always felt
that in a dream
i was the absence
of the dream
and then it dawned on me
that i was in a time piece
trapped during forgotten hours
where everything is alien
but vaguely familiar
the beach beneath me wandering
off to anywhere but here
and i straddle the shoreline
palming stray shards of sea glass
always the color of her eyes
and i am abruptly upside down
an upheaval, a maw
where i thought it as
a nightly revenge
for skipping stones
and again i am upended
& back on the beach
born of broken hourglasses
and it makes me think
that god likes to watch things leave me
Feb 15, 2014
Feb 15, 2014 at 11:35 AM UTC
a bottle of scotch had bad dreams.
bullets twitch, junk sick
in 3 inch thick
mustard ****
toe nails clipped from yeti
lay strewn about the **** stained corpse
of a motel six dixie cup -
root canal trophy,
next to
a black fez
with scab tassel
upended.
down in it. belching apnea
propaganda
and belladonna
waiting for curious george
to find a shotgun
and a yellow
hat
and a brick banana.
blowflies inhale the rank damp
of a fresh ****
the odd dog whines
like a clown in -
a blender.
[ the ]
house wins
with a marked card; jabbing fat fingers
into acned rosacea
bloated with sleep lack
and mortgage
back stab
chasing twenty ******
with a hollow point
pull from an acid
flask
while hailing a black cab.
tinsel sutures
stitch eyelids as a mercy
shattered bone knit
hand-grenade
cozies
old glory, at half mast
half wasted
fifty stars, no light
dragging on
the grounds of immunity
to do a line
of coke stock
with a basset hounds'
finesse.
your taxes at work
in columbia,
hiding from a lost farm
in Idaho
your american dream
turning tricks in shanghai
for a counterfeit
egga roll
your meme, devoid
like an ice cube
tombstone
your freedom, parking cars
for italian escorts
smoking skin flutes
for ferraris
and white teeth.
your integrity, sold to a hedge fund
for astroglide and a pez dispenser
packed with prozac
pressed by ' Jose the butcher' s abuela
in a narco slum
that ain't seen radio
since cinder blocks
had wings.
Dec 26, 2012
Dec 26, 2012 at 2:40 PM UTC
I like slandering your makeshift forceps.
I hammer you down with watery *** and then spill
the remainder on the couch. Yarg! A diamond’s
worth at least a small intestine, and you
are worth whatever’s left over after night
has upended itself, poured sideways out of its
shellacked crawlspace, and turned the basement sour.
There are remnants of you in the park,
some red stain by the baseball field where,
if you’ll remember, you watched little leaguers
build teamwork, and faint splotches on tree bark
from your lactations which, if you’ll remember, happened
every morning. I whisper your godforsaken name
and am slapped in the head. The children cry
when I smile. I cry when the children smile. Good
heavens. I forbid you from not entering my corridor,
even as I set up a barricade. I like my water scalding,
my passion chilled, and I like you in easy-to-
swallow doses. I like you in my eggs.
Ditto the faucet, keyboard, the occasional lily,
but do not mess with my pearls. I mumble of apodictic
meadows while I sleep. What can I say?
I do not mumble of unclogging your bathtub,
which has a certain foul repute, and has grown
heavy and ugly with your hair, which is everywhere,
just as you are everywhere, and wherever, and so
********* hidden it’s not funny anymore, we stopped
looking some millennia ago, after scouring the drainpipes,
kicking down your doors, dissecting your mattress,
speculating about your burial site, etcetera, and even so
we have not been really looking all this time, have we,
just blaring your name through the speakers,
putting wrong numbers on our calling cards, leaving
uncooked meat out on the back porch as if you were
a raccoon, oh, or a lion, which you are not, or not
quite, though, as the books say, you have honey
in your stomach, and if you could but be
ripped open we would taste and see.
May 25, 2010
May 25, 2010 at 8:21 PM UTC
She was the only lighthouse in a roiling sea of black
My rowboat upended
As the waves enveloped my screams
Gasping, reaching
As the foamy pitch swallowed me whole
CLANG mourned the lighthouse
Her yellow beam helplessly revolving
CLANG CLANG
Apr 23, 2015
Apr 23, 2015 at 2:07 PM UTC
Who knows what stops the heart of a song
I take note
of tiny thud—
robin in the wheel well of my car
the limp head
of a cat’s prey
sigh of wings
defrocked by power lines
baby starling’s fledgling flight
falling short of a pond’s edge
The slate morsel unearthed
by the tines of my rake
…and the world is vacant for a moment
Grief ***** a womb of air
but how it lives— I cannot say
Upended creature of us
Stops the throbs that herald life
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 3:24 PM UTC
People always complain about political correctness
Unless it's something important to them
Then they expect you to use empathetic indirectness
As to not hurt the feelings of men
I'm a homosexual talking to a stranger
They don't detect this
They say ****** and unleash my anger
They don't expect this
They were expecting me to be socially correct
To their bigoted views
They can't handle it when their hatred reflects
And they're given their due
I can't ask for a simple date
Or mention anything about God
I can't ask for their ****** state
That would imply that they're flawed
Yet they say I'm easily offended
But their argument is upended
When there are many topics I must avoid
Or hedge around
Otherwise they will get easily annoyed
And wear a frown
People say Donald Trump is politically incorrect
But that's not true
He's a hateful piece of ****
People confuse that with political incorrectness
But if about half the people who vote are pieces of ****
Can that really be said to be incorrect?
The idea of the president being politically incorrect is absurd
By virtue of being elected his politics are being endorsed
And endorsement is what comprises political correctness
He may know nothing of governance or diplomacy
But he was correct when it came to politics
I live in a country where I can say pretty much whatever I want
And then everyone else can react however they want
To be angry at someone's reaction is its own political correctness
They're just mad it's not their own specific politics being adhered to
So when people mention political correctness I laugh
It's a defensively reflexive path
When they live an unexamined life
But then complain about their plight
They think they're hated because they're white
They think they're hated because they're right
I dislike them because they have low empathy
So I don't want to be near that
Because their hatred starts to enter me
When they call me a queer ***
Then they expect me to love it
But instead I tell them to shove it
They tell me I'm being politically correct
Maybe it's their own lives they should inspect
Feb 3, 2018
Feb 3, 2018 at 11:31 PM UTC
“A groan of tedium escapes me, startling the fearful
Is this a test? It has to be, otherwise I can't go on.
Haven't written a word in three and a half years.
Time to take the broom out to this shallow grave”
Middlesteps
~~~~(|)~~~~
For
deep is the fear, coated in thickening veneer
of might-be-bravery,
the weight, Oh, the weight!
of that writing utensil that both
bears and bares all,
an uncomfortable unconscious,
uncontrollable surrender
that sweeps down upon us,
when first we seek the unwieldy unwinding
of our proactive fist of a first step,
the unclenching, the open face palm,
seeing our lifeline’s revelation, the shame,
the lines we thought that faded away,
upended, open ended, that the worst
un-finishing, but here I am, my taking, the
baby steps of Middlesteps,
only looking
back to forwards for permission,
a new looking inward
forward!
we confesses, beg for our own forgiveness
for ourselves, the years of summary silence ,
at last!
unveiled and unbound, this first step stinks of
tremors, poems never writ up, but on our mouths
and fingertips yet memorized as IF they were bespoke
this return,
“startling the fearful,”
a provocation to the mirrored images
caked on my disheartened body,
goes lightly noticed, but not by me!
daily, I ask the bay and the sky, the animals,
the query lives in almost each of my scripts,
Where is Shelter?
today the answer is not an apparition,
but the question is rephrased,
not where! but when
the answer is now apparent,
for the seed planted, this is for you,
watering the seed, feeding the shoot,
that I know too well,
for asked and I answer,
everyday…
Sep 24, 2023
Sep 24, 2023 at 11:53 AM UTC
There was a young man in Travancore,
who joined a program to control anger,
The instructor, a sultry, bold miss
suggested, "Let's start with a kiss"
Her stunning range upended the ******
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 1:16 PM UTC
In the shadows of the walls
where laughter once reverberated
as a symphony of gleeful bliss,
intonational inclines arise in the dark
as dancing phantoms haunt
the smirking silence which dissipates
from the splotched, upended floorboards,
while midnight footprints breathlessly creak,
cradling the demonizing affirmations whispered,
the very ones I knew would never become true.
We stood by, powerlessly spectating
as the love we once shared
gasped for air, red in the face,
its gushing carotid bulging in desperation,
four lungs incinerating themselves
with imminent anticipation
of the death gleaming
just over the horizon,
its violet hues juxtaposing
with the glimmering night skies
of faded constellations comprising the celestial
as moonlit silhouettes waltzed across the water,
a bright cerulean rippling in our presence,
the genesis of a journey unforeseen.
Brutal acceptance rains from my eyes,
a rumbling river that reigns supreme
over the rounded stones stacked high
as a towering dam of branches and rubble,
leftover waste long forgotten and forlorn;
hometown fantasies of childhood memories
linger longer than our lost loyalty,
liberating me from the rusted chains
you'd stapled into my brittle bones,
a leash tied tightly around my throat
to **** me from my courageous caution
back into the splintered wheel
dictating our selfish agendas,
empty promises of dilapidated affirmations
now turned weary and worn
with this newfound sense of reflection,
a dichotomy depicting time's own passage,
the consequence of a metamorphic resolution
of open wounds blossoming into eroded scars.
Futuristic visions of lesions now mended
seamlessly fuse with renewed self-reception,
your broken promises stitched with the threads
ripped from the capillaries comprising my core,
blood-stained carpet of scarlet and crimson
fading into an aged and weathered maroon,
never truly waning in its acquainted pigment
yet blossoming into a stained fabric
portraying the promises of the past,
of decayed ruins now industriously erected
into a radiant utopia of gallant, rubious valor,
the final product of an unyielding resolve
to have our story rewritten, our own steadfast evolution.
Jan 6, 2024
Jan 6, 2024 at 6:24 PM UTC
A helicopter fashioned
from feathers and fairy dust
buzzed the rioting fuchsia,
Newton's laws upended,
outsmarted,
The ruby-throated flier darted
over and under blossoms,
taking samples
with the lightest touch--
like a visitor from another planet
intending no harm,
then he backed off, surveying,
Lingering in weightlessness,
Suspended in the moment before,
when all is possible,
Poised on the edge of
free fall,
deciding what's next.
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 10:52 AM UTC
Sun comes up,
she goes down
on some upended main drag,
if i were an archaeologist
i still wouldn't dig this place,
every other day she dwells
in tedious, empty cafés,
but on the weekends she flashes
her "license and registration"
to oncoming traffic,
hoping for grifted furlough
to wear as silken, shiny beads,
and so we ride
this merry-go-round,
because moving in circles
is far better than being trapped in a square,
we've stopped climbing the calendar
in search of higher elevation,
she used to pour it on thick,
stirring drinks inside my head,
i used to shake
worries from her hair,
now with bitter orange marmalade
low in the sky, and stacked against us,
it's home before dark,
lest our eyes open wide to see
we are nothing more
but strangers at sundown.
Feb 17, 2021
Feb 17, 2021 at 10:57 AM UTC
Emergent and forming I feel a storm is imploring that soon without any warning you beg to cross a line
Every time, nothing is sacred but sacramental complacence is marked as roles of the shameless
Mean to skip a line another time? Is this too rough and obtuse for a cutie like you to boost the power line?
Number 9, completion is power and stricken chords every hour proceed to timeline devour those daily entities
I do decree that opposition to me is free and withered beatings to meetings, detours and dealings
understanding demands of variable plans is held by the hand that feeds the depleted need
I see it from every angle, the tangle, the multishifted frame though it dangles, I can't be stuck in my own head when
I see the reflections of me in the treasure it jangles, brings into focus where my head fell to float in the
moments set to wrangle, pull it in, dwell upon the good and discard where it hampers new fangled notions like
truth effusions of love and devotion are swallowed up in the daily ocean of noise traffic, the more verbose,
Graphic dispatches matches blasted disasters dashed and rash past distractions amass magic attacks balanced
Secular motion entwined with metaphysical potions, divided what is your quotient? It doesn't add up in this
moment.
Interpersonal, intergalactic, universal assertions disturbed by verbage of outrance
Message mismanaged mischief mallaeble mayhem managed maganamously mallicous mannered when I
would proclaim them. Members materialized meriting masturbatory movements and monetized
malappropriation I have no patience nor pathos for indiscriminant egos demonstrating a tangent as canon and
paralyzing progressions toward psychic visions of heaven, eyes as the cosmos, and pressures upended.
I'll cope with associations disastrous and tainted, but keep in my visage all that scratches my lenses
I know far too much to be content with the situation, but far too little to shatter falsehood's intitiation
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 5:53 AM UTC
He shuffles in as 7:12 precisely.
The girl is always there, and greets him nicely
With a knowing smile that only can belong
to those that can say "The usual?" As if they knew it, all along,
What is so very very usual. At least, then,
He would never have to say it when
He orders his vanilla latte in a cardboard cup.
"That measures out my life. That sums it up,"
He thinks, eyeing the plastic coffee spoons.
"It's all due gone too soon, too soon.
The girl will be there, every day,
Regardless of what I ask or say
If I wanted to. Beginning is the hardest part, I know, I know,
But would it hurt to tell her so?"
Her arms are bare to the elbow there
And as she gets his drink, she sees his stare
And is a little flattered, and a little offended.
Would the world explode and land upended
If he commented on the ghastly weather as of late,
Or tell her that he loved her? That it was Fate?
But he will only mumble a thank you and leave a lovely tip
In the jar on the counter. And that is it.
May 26, 2011
May 26, 2011 at 8:20 PM UTC
My limbs wrested, and extended, towards the heavens
like young children’s hands on the first sunlit days of spring.
The muted grays of winter fade, soon replaced by softer blues.
I still remember the first time I caught wind of you,
your back against my trunk and it lent me your lungs.
I learned to breathe like you too,
in shy and quiet silences while trying not to shake-
the world
but darling you came into mine, trembling fault lines
like an earthquake reading poetry and upended my roots.
I was seduced by you and there was nothing you did,
or could do that would untie this bind we shared
our bodies intertwined, ancient wood and woman
tethered together by the invisible pleasure
of one another’s company.
You spoke to me with feathers
and kissed me with subtle gestures
while I shade you from the sun.
I had never known such a word
but on that summer I called it love
and I believed it to be true
until the day you did not come.
The earth and soil from which I sow
has slowly grown into a prison atop this grassy knoll.
I have become a tree with the memories of a man.
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 12:47 PM UTC
My Father, who means well, makes me lunch
A man who’s sandwiches could never be
trusted, who used the mossy breadends cause
thats how they did it on the farm but
I am the cry baby who rejects the
deadened bread, dark wilted lettuce spines
lettuce rinds, inedible, unclean
Perspiring, lovingly wrapped in cellophane
And now I’m old enough I must
so carefully control what’s
between my full, whole, mid-loaf slices,
Fret about gluten.
Jesus help me I’m so afraid of
invisible moulds and the taste of iron
in those glossy cylinders of upended campbells
tomato: quivering naked, vermillion in the pan,
like chilled organs they appeared hepatic
I’m sure the milk he adds is soured he
cannot be trusted, my father, but
forgive him he knows not what he does, I
know they didn't have much on the farm I
am spoiled like the milk, too sensitive, I
wilt, because I have become too hard to feed,
we didn't know what to do with this kind of love.
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 4:15 PM UTC
Holding back is an impulse for those of us
who spell 'happy' with a question mark.
We are the restless, thinking deeply;
trained to accept a consuming plateau.
We follow theories in patterns so as to clumsily grasp at
a conclusion to poke holes in and a reason to follow it
around again - the upended bicycle wheel spins and
we push ever harder - desperate to find something new;
Words to write or notes to piece together on a
set of strings or keys to show we're here and happy?
A little grain of our forever-doubt to leave behind
after spending lives tracing a question mark;
Weaving a pen around the joy that grows in the
middle of our road to arrive at an empty point.
?
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 5:25 PM UTC
13 years, so many jobs
so many names you half forgot
got caught and collected
at the corner of your mouth.
Outside, it's one more night,
one more stitch in this rag doll year
and you can still hear the way she'd
try to talk while laughing
any given Sunday night.
Might be you half forgot.
Might be the roaring years
drowned out the hum of their names
in your ears
earned your stripes, now wear 'em well
spell out your name in snow, then
go lay down in the bed you made.
Outside, it's lights and noise
and visible breath
footbeats on sidewalks,
forgotten names with smokers' coughs
all caught in the roaring tides of
the time.
But it's blood clots inside;
a parenthesized appositive
redefining what you lost.
In the clot, one sunk to the silt,
to the dregs.
In here, your living room
is outside the parenthesis,
closed out of the open air.
Spare change beneath the lamp
strangely mocking outside lights,
glinting bright,
but silent.
Inert.
And, just outside,
those city lights
they flash for others;
those with jobs and funds,
with lovers,
with smiles still left
in the tank.
Not fake ones constructed
by nights getting ****** up
or upended frowns painting
clown faces all pasty--
you'll get out.
You'll make it back;
black clouds blow past
and the tide runs out fast. And--
lastly?--
You're made of better stuff than that.
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 6:15 PM UTC
Feed to me a current so that I may have an adversary
It’ll help carry the bones home when our wars are done
Remembering how we’d dislodged our lives
Torn them clean from the earth
Stolen to ***** cairns too tall to climb
Even for nimble us
Allow me then to stack my bricks up against yours
Measure if you must
They can topple continuously
Mine were bound to from birth
Build with them a wall against which I can press
In my very own war
Crumble the pieces into a fine powder
To be blown out of hand and spun
into a wind-turned eye
Call it salt and litter our croplands with it
It is standard procedure
That nothing lives long enough to learn how to mock itself
Watch it slip from your hands
Watch the line slip from mine
No chance of less slack on my own volition
Better a contained current in some watery recess
Than a fought one upended in thundering torrents
Better to quell the urge to hurl oneself toward it
Than to hold taut a line tied to a drowning stone
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 12:59 AM UTC
Dicontained, uprooted from
origins and disbelongings
stowed stored
in hermetic containers
stacked by soul-less rows
in the dead cold night,
transiting to upended lands.
Inside, a monocular view:
ironed pillars, art-palm,
disinteresting shots framed
of distant falls,
as luggage tumbles off
the conveyor creaking
tired from endless
circumambulations of the
graveyard of emotions, where
day on day, hopes, loves,
dreams, die, unwaved for.
Welcome - to neverneverland.
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 2:19 PM UTC
Seconds tick by
Quicksand-slow
Time inches forward
But I can't tell
Slow down or speed up?
I can't make up my mind
I can't wait for tomorrow
But I'm running out of time
Bittersweet time
My fear and my foe
Longing for the simpler days
Longing for a home
Waiting for everything
And nothing at all
Today we may fly
And tomorrow we fall
Temporary permanence
To stay or to go?
Eerything matters
And nothing does too
One love dies
And another one blooms
Equilibrium off-kilter
And balance upended
One thing begins
Because another one's ended
Nothing's forever
Everything's eternal
Contradictory agreement
And heavenly hell
Squalid splendor
And honest lies
What happens to the universe
When forever dies?
Aug 13, 2010
Aug 13, 2010 at 3:55 PM UTC
"Hi, Therese."
I say it when I go to water my plants in the sunny window
And there stuck in the cords of my dreamcatcher
I notice the little husks of the white flowers you picked for me
Back when the nights weren't even that chilly.
I feel it all again,
And now that I have forgiven your utter silence I have no defense
Against my need to connect.
And the words spill out-
Aloud!-
"Hi, Therese."
And it's really not much at all,
Except that they continue in my head all day long.
When I pass by a spot where I saw you
Or when something momentarily triggers a memory
In my head,
"Hi, Therese."
Soft and wistful and more tender than I would like to admit.
Sometimes at night before I go to sleep,
I rest my fingers on the crumbling pedals of those flowers
Just softly,
So that none of their dust trickles down the wall,
And I say to you the things I imagine people say to God before they sleep.
I have never been one for God.
He has never been one for me, either,
And so I have come to see divinity in people, instead.
It isn't a choice, really,
It's just that when I am in dire circumstances, sad, or lonely,
I do not speak to the sky,
I speak to the memory of somebody I would blot it out for.
Sometimes I am ashamed.
But the effect you've had
Reverberates through my life in waves.
I can't explain just why,
Just like I can't explain why I've never thought there was a heaven.
(i found it in your arms. i found hell there, as well. i think they are
two sides
of the same coin.)
I only know that I cannot hold loving you.
It spills out of me at random little times,
And pulls at my carefully mended seams,
And tugs on my carefully chained heart.
So sometimes when I walk into my room and it's sunny and quiet
And I stand by the window watching green leaves eat up the light,
I say very quietly,
"Hi, Therese."
And I feel a little bit less upended.
And really
What choice have I but to speak to you like you're God
When you are as absent
And as essential?
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 12:58 PM UTC